Tuesday, July 15, 2008

L.O. 3: Adding Construction From Storyboard To Layout Poses

Here are some layout poses from the thumbnail boards.Here's the board.A layout artist have to be able to capture the essence of the attitudes, poses and expressions in storyboard but add:constructionproportionsfleshdetails

but details can be a hindrance to the liveliness of the poses, so be careful!

What I'm really after are skilled artists that can do all this...WITHOUT TONING DOWN THE STORYBOARDS.It's not an easy task. You have to be careful to not let the details get in the way of the line of action and overall clean silhouette.The flesh and clothes wrinkles - if they stick out too much from the silhouette of the pose, will eat away at the pose and distract from the overall message.Some artists have submitted samples of their layout interpretations of these same poses and had some of theproblems I mentioned: adding too much sticky-outy flesh and clothes wrinkles that ate away from the pose.

Evening out the asymmetry is also a big problem. If any of you brave souls would be kind enough share your drawing tests in the post I could show everyone what I'm talking about. It would help you and others too, but I don't want to post them and embarrass anyone so let me know if I have your permission.

these 2 poses are the first 2 I did when planning out the scene. They are the stiffest and least lively. I warmed up after a while.

Note the wrinkles on his jacket form around his body shape and they ad up to an overall curve rather than each being a different size and different direction. That would make a confusing image.These drawings are just the first step of layoutposing, translating the basic poses from the storyboard without toning them down.The next step is to add poses and breakdowns.

Are you making a cartoon or you are just using these to illustrate how one would have to do it?It would be cool to see those stories with George and the "dirty one" with sody and cats being released someday though.

I love how your lines flow organically around the silouette. A lot of young artists who are trying to learn construction compose the figure of a bunch of separate segments stuck together like a puppet- and it looks dead- but the way you tie everything together with flowing, organic lines really brings the drawing to life (for example mabel_sc1_2.jpg- the way George's arm flows into the hand and back around.) If an artist was to try to do this without knowing construction it would look formless and blobby. Obviously at some point you internalize the construction so you don't have to draw it and can then draw with more life and design. If that makes any sense at all I would love to hear you elaborate on how you do it,S.

This is gonna be a really lively animation. The just from those few poses, I can tell just how much more fluid this will be compared to the previous George Liquor series, never mind what you see on television today. I really can't wait to see the finished product!

The thing I love of about your cartoons John is that you make sure the viewer is paying attention to the body parts you want them to be looking at. Oh and This OT but I just WALL-E, it's the standard Pixar dreck.